Competitive formation of spiro and ansa derivatives in the reactions of tetrafluorobutane-1,4-diol with hexachlorocyclotriphosphazene: a comparison with butane-1,4-diol

Reaction of hexachlorocyclotriphosphazene, N3P3Cl6 (1), in two stoichiometries (1:1.2 and 1:3) with the sodium derivative of the fluorinated diol, 2,2,3,3-tetrafluorobutane-1,4-diol, (2), in THF solution at room temperature afforded six products, whose structures have been characterized by X-ray crystallography and 1H, 19F and 31P NMR spectroscopy: the mono-spiro compound, N3P3Cl4(OCH2CF2CF2CH2O), (3), its ansa isomer, (4), a di-spiro derivative N3P3Cl2(OCH2CF2CF2CH2O)2, (5), its spiro-ansa (6) and non-gem cis bis-ansa (7) isomers and a tri-spiro compound N3P3(OCH2CF2CF2CH2O)3, (8). The tri-spiro derivative (8) was also formed in the reaction of the ansa compound (4) with diol (2) in a 1:3 ratio in THF at room temperature. The reactions of (1) with step-wise additions of (2) were also investigated at low temperature (-780C) to give the same range of products as at room temperature. The results of all reactions are compared with previous work on the reactions of (1) with butane-1,4-diol/pyridine mixtures and with the reaction of hexafluorocyclotriphosphazene, N3P3F6 (9), with the silyl derivative of the diol (2), (Me3SiOCH2CF2)2, in a 1:0.4 mole ratio in the same solvent, THF

Religiosity and Sexual Risk Behaviors Among Latina Adolescents: Trends from 1995 to 2008

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine trends in the influence of religiosity on sexual activity of Latina adolescents in the United States from 1995 to 2008 and to determine if differences existed between the Mexican American and other Latina groups. Methods: The sample comprised the subset of unmarried, 15–21-year-old (mean 17 years) Latina female respondents in the 1995 (n=267), 2002 (n=306), and 2006–2008 (n=400) National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG) datasets. Associations between religiosity (importance of religion and service attendance) and history of ever having sex, number of sex partners, and age of sexual debut were investigated. Results: Less than one half of Latinas in 1995 (44%) and in 2006–2008 (44%) reported that religion was very important to them, whereas in 2002, 50% reported it was important. Only in 1995 did Latinas who viewed religion as very important have a significantly lower level of sexual initiation. In 1995 and in 2006–2008, Latinas who held religion as very important had significantly fewer partners. In all three cohorts, the higher religious importance group had higher virgin survival rates. Across cohorts, approximately one third of respondents reported frequent religious attendance. In all cohorts, frequent attenders were less likely to have had sex, had fewer partners, and had older age at sexual debut. The survival rate as virgins for Mexican origin Latinas was higher in 1995 and 2002 compared to non-Mexican Latinas but was almost the same in 2006–2008. Conclusions: Religiosity had a protective association with sexual activity among Latina adolescents. The association of importance of religion with sexual activity has diminished from 1995 to 2008, however, whereas the importance of service attendance has remained stable. The influence of religion was more apparent among the Latinas of Mexican origin, but this greater influence also diminished by 2006–2008

Of Offers Not (Frequently) Made and (Rarely) Accepted: The Mystery of Federal Rule 68

This Symposium brings together, from around the nation, eight civil rights and employment discrimination lawyers, four legal academics, and an eminent federal judge, all with deep experience and interest in the promise and pitfalls of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 68. We gather to unravel a mystery. In an oversimplified nutshell, Rule 68, as construed, enables the defendants to say to the plaintiffs in employment discrimination and civil rights cases: If you don\u27t beat my offer at trial, you forfeit your right to any future statutory attorney fees. Rule 68 would, therefore, appear to give the defendants a significant incentive to make offers and to give the plaintiffs a significant incentive to accept them. Yet, the rule is seldom used. The mystery is why

Towards an English-Spanish version of the Comprehensive Transboundary International Water Quality Management Agreement

The aim of this communication is to discuss strategies for, and progress achieved in transboundary water quality management. The Comprehensive Transboundary Water Quality Management Agreement with Guidelines for Development of a Management Plan, Standards, and Criteria. (ASCE/EWRI 33-09). The purpose of this Agreement is to provide a framework for governments to adopt or modify comprehensive water quality planning and management mechanisms of shared water resources. The Spanish version of the Agreement, completed by the ASCE/EWRI Border International Water Quality Standards Committee (BIWQ SC) Translation Ad Hoc Group, allows the scope of this Framework along and across Spanish speaking political boundaries. This version includes some updates balloted by the Committee to ensure that all factors involved in the sharing and management of water resources are considered in the development of the Agreement, so that it can accommodate the current realities of the boundary governments. The original version of the Agreement (ASCE/EWRI 33-09) is being revised and will be replaced in the coming months by the ASCE/EWRI 33-16. The ASCE/EWRI 33-16 contains the most current model for comprehensive water quality planning and management of shared water resources. It underlines the importance of governmental cooperation to alleviate causes of present and future disagreement and promotes the development of common strategies to use, manage and protect shared water resources. The ASCE/EWRI 33-16 is an agreement to be used, modified, and enhanced through every government on an international scale and in a variety of geopolitical settings

Longitudinal measurement of the developing grey matter in preterm subjects using multi-modal MRI.

Preterm birth is a major public health concern, with the severity and occurrence of adverse outcome increasing with earlier delivery. Being born preterm disrupts a time of rapid brain development: in addition to volumetric growth, the cortex folds, myelination is occurring and there are changes on the cellular level. These neurological events have been imaged non-invasively using diffusion-weighted (DW) MRI. In this population, there has been a focus on examining diffusion in the white matter, but the grey matter is also critically important for neurological health. We acquired multi-shell high-resolution diffusion data on 12 infants born at ≤28weeks of gestational age at two time-points: once when stable after birth, and again at term-equivalent age. We used the Neurite Orientation Dispersion and Density Imaging model (NODDI) (Zhang et al., 2012) to analyse the changes in the cerebral cortex and the thalamus, both grey matter regions. We showed region-dependent changes in NODDI parameters over the preterm period, highlighting underlying changes specific to the microstructure. This work is the first time that NODDI parameters have been evaluated in both the cortical and the thalamic grey matter as a function of age in preterm infants, offering a unique insight into neuro-development in this at-risk population

Software and information life cycle (SILC) for the Integrated Information Services Organization

This document describes the processes to be used for creating corporate information systems within the scope of the Integrated Information Services (IIS) Center. Issue B describes all phases of the life cycle, with strong emphasis on the interweaving of the Analysis and Design phases. This Issue B supersedes Issue A, which concentrated on the Analysis and Implementation phases within the context of the entire life cycle. Appendix A includes a full set of examples of the deliverables, excerpted from the Network Database. Subsequent issues will further develop these life cycle processes as we move toward enterprise-level management of information assets, including information meta-models and an integrated corporate information model. The phases described here, when combined with a specifications repository, will provide the basis for future reusable components and improve traceability of information system specifications to enterprise business rules

Hyperinsulinism in short-chain L-3-hydroxyacyl-CoA dehydrogenase deficiency reveals the importance of beta-oxidation in insulin secretion

A female infant of nonconsanguineous Indian parents presented at 4 months with a hypoglycemic convulsion. Further episodes of hypoketotic hypoglycemia were associated with inappropriately elevated plasma insulin concentrations. However, unlike other children with hyperinsulinism, this patient had a persistently elevated blood spot hydroxybutyrylcarnitine concentration when fed, as well as when fasted. Measurement of the activity of L-3-hydroxyacyl-CoA dehydrogenase in cultured skin fibroblasts with acetoacetyl-CoA substrate showed reduced activity. In fibroblast mitochondria, the activity was less than 5% that of controls. Sequencing of the short-chain L-3-hydroxyacyl-CoA dehydrogenase (SCHAD) genomic DNA from the fibroblasts showed a homozygous mutation (C773T) changing proline to leucine at amino acid 258. Analysis of blood from the parents showed they were heterozygous for this mutation. Western blot studies showed undetectable levels of immunoreactive SCHAD protein in the child's fibroblasts. Expression studies showed that the P258L enzyme had no catalytic activity. We conclude that C773T is a disease-causing SCHAD mutation. This is the first defect in fatty acid beta -oxidation that has been associated with hyperinsulinism and raises interesting questions about the ways in which changes in fatty acid and ketone body metabolism modulate insulin secretion by the beta cell. The patient's hyperinsulinism was easily controlled with diazoxide and chlorothiazide

A review of residual stress analysis using thermoelastic techniques

Thermoelastic Stress Analysis (TSA) is a full-field technique for experimental stress analysis that is based on infra-red thermography. The technique has proved to be extremely effective for studying elastic stress fields and is now well established. It is based on the measurement of the temperature change that occurs as a result of a stress change. As residual stress is essentially a mean stress it is accepted that the linear form of the TSA relationship cannot be used to evaluate residual stresses. However, there are situations where this linear relationship is not valid or departures in material properties due to manufacturing procedures have enabled evaluations of residual stresses. The purpose of this paper is to review the current status of using a TSA based approach for the evaluation of residual stresses and to provide some examples of where promising results have been obtained

Reactivity Initiated Accident Test Series RIA Scoping Test Experiment Predictions

The Reactivity 'Initiated Accident (RIA) test series to be conducted in the Power Burst Facility (PBF) has been designed.to determine fuel failure thresholds, modes, and consequences as a function of energy deposition, irradiation history, and fuel design. The RIA Scoping Test will be comprised of five single unirradiated rod sub-tests. The first rod will be subjected to a series of transient power bursts of increasing energy release to determine the energy deposition at cladding failure. The second and third rods will be subjected to energy depositions near that which caused failure of the first rod, to further define the failure threshold. Rods four and five will be subjected to large radially averaged energy depositions, 1990 and 2510 J/g respectively, to investigate facility safety concerns. Several analyses were performed to predict test fuel rod and system behavior during the five RIA Scoping Test phases. A reactor physics analysis was performed to obtain the relationship between test fuel rod and reactor core energy during a power transient. The calculations were made with the RAFFLE computer code. The thermal-hydraulic behavior of the test rod coolant was investigated for pellet surface energy depositions of 900, 1125, and 1350 J/g for the first three phases of the Scoping Test. The RELAP4 computer code was used for these thermal-hydraulic analyses. The results of the RELAP4 calculations provided input to the FRAP-T4 computer code for three fuel rod behavior analyses at pellet surface energy depositions of 815, 1020, and 1225 J/g. A cladding embrittlement analysis, using the results of the FRAP-T4 calculations as input, was made to investigate the cladding oxidation mode of rod failure for the lower energy phases. BUILD5 was the analytical tool used in this investigation. Finally, the pressure pulses generated as a result of failure of the test fuel rods in the final two high energy test phases were calculated using the SPIRT computer code. In previous reactivity initiated accident tests performed in the SPERT, TREAT, and NSRR facilities a pellet surface energy deposition of 12.350 x 10{sup 3} J/cm{sup 3} was identified as the failure threshold for unirradiated fuel rods with the ambient test conditions of 300 K, 0.1 MPa, and no forced flow. This volumetric energy deposition is equivalent to a pellet surface energy deposition of 1190 J/g (284 cal/g) when the RIA-ST fuel pellet density of 10.365 g/cm{sup 3} is considered. ·For no-flow conditions, it was further observed that the presence of a flow shroud caused a reduction of up to 10% in the failure threshold. The modes of failure seen in the previous tests were cladding embrittlement and low pressure rupture as the zircaloy melting temperature was approached. In general, the rod failures occurred only when a peak cladding temperature of 2073 K or above was reached. Based on the analyses, it is predicted that the test fuel rod energy deposition failure threshold will be 1035 J/g (247 cal/g) at the pellet surface for the fuel rods used in the initial three phases of the RIA Scoping Test. The initial coolant conditions for these cases are equivalent to a fuel enthalpy of 69 J/g (16.5 cal/g) at the fuel surface over ambient conditions. When the difference in initial coolant conditions is considered, the total fuel enthalpy increase leading to cladding failure observed in the previous RIA tests is equivalent to 1122 J/g (268 cal/g) at the fuel pellet surface. The difference between the predicted failure threshold value and that observed in previous tests (87 J/g) is believed to be a combined result of the presence of a flow shroud and uncertainies in the computer codes used to make the predictions. The mode of failure according to the analyses will be rupture due to high temperature cladding weakening. The consequences of these failures are predicted to he minimal. The mode of failure for the high energy phases of the Scoping Test will be cladding rupture due to internal rod pressurization from UO{sub 2} vaporization. The high energy rod failures were predicted by the SPIRT code to result in source pressure pulses of 24.1 and 24.8 MPa for the 1990 and 2510 J/g energy depositions, respectively. Pressure doubling will occur in each case with a rise time of 7 ms, resulting in maximum pressures of 31.7 and 34.5 MPa, respectively

Room-Temperature Distance Measurements of Immobilized Spin-Labeled Protein by DEER/PELDOR

Nitroxide spin labels are used for double electron-electron resonance (DEER) measurements of distances between sites in biomolecules. Rotation of gem-dimethyls in commonly used nitroxides causes spin echo dephasing times (Tm) to be too short to perform DEER measurements at temperatures between ∼80 and 295 K, even in immobilized samples. A spirocyclohexyl spin label has been prepared that has longer Tm between 80 and 295 K in immobilized samples than conventional labels. Two of the spirocyclohexyl labels were attached to sites on T4 lysozyme introduced by site-directed spin labeling. Interspin distances up to ∼4 nm were measured by DEER at temperatures up to 160 K in water/glycerol glasses. In a glassy trehalose matrix the Tm for the doubly labeled T4 lysozyme was long enough to measure an interspin distance of 3.2 nm at 295 K, which could not be measured for the same protein labeled with the conventional 1-oxyl-2,2,5,5-tetramethyl-3-pyrroline-3- (methyl)methanethio-sulfonate label